To answer the question I say no. I've had many a bird go the other way when they heard me calling but I think it was from other factors. Such as hens, or predators. Or maybe my calling wasn't that good. Turkeys have to talk with each other to survive and they are wired that way. Hunters aren't going to change that. I think they gobble less with pressure and may be less likely to come to calls but they aren't call shy. Its the universal excuse for tag soup.

It used be my catch phrase, "If turkeys were afraid of turkey calls, they'd be extinct." Point being that they are social animals and need calling to interact (ie. breed, feed, and protect). The idea that turkeys are fearful of turkey sounds defies common sense to me.

Do turkeys get into bad moods? Yes. Will they choose to move away from your calling for whatever reason? Yes. Are they afarid? No.

It used be my catch phrase, "If turkeys were afraid of turkey calls, they'd be extinct." Point being that they are social animals and need calling to interact (ie. breed, feed, and protect). The idea that turkeys are fearful of turkey sounds defies common sense to me.

Do turkeys get into bad moods? Yes. Will they choose to move away from your calling for whatever reason? Yes. Are they afarid? No.

I'll disagree with JPH on this one-- somebody has to be the Contrarian if JPH refuses. Otherwise this thing won't go more than a few pages.

Do turkeys get into bad moods? Yes. Will they choose to move away from your calling for whatever reason? Yes.

That right there is call shy. Yep. I've seen that. That's call shy if I ever seen it.

Now as to the reasons for them having moods and reasons?

I have a neighbor. We'll call him "Jimmy the Poacher" I met him back in 2001. He's not really named Jimmy. On the off-chance he knows someone with a computer, I'll use another name. He asked for permission to hunt from me even before I bought the place. In the first five minutes I found out: [ol][*]He was Jimmy. He was my neighbor[*]He had asked everyone he'd ever met if he could hunt this place. He'd been always told no.
[*]He'd hunted it anyway and always had good luck.[*]He'd was hoping I was some distant relative of the owners.[/ol]I wrote Jimmy a letter of permission for a limited part of the land for deer season. In November I got a call from the plumber, who was in hooking up my water.

"You got the dangdest thing going on out here."

"What?"

"You got some guy that just come outta his trailer in his underwear and unloaded a 30-30 on a herd of deer on your property."

"Did he hit anything?"

"No."

""That's Jimmy. I wouldn't worry about it. He does that all the time. He can't hit squat."

In April, he nearly shot my son and me, unloading at a flock of turkeys. I caught up to him later as he was coming out and chewed him out but good. Jimmy spent the next few years scared that I was going to come over and kill him in his sleep.

As the story unfolded, I found out Jimmy's a 2-time loser on wildlife convictions-- one more and he's going away for a while. He hunts everywhere and everything and never kills anything. One day he shot another hunter's decoys. He is despised and reviled by everyone. The CO has him on that special list he keeps close to his heart.

Every time the CO drives down the road, it's usually for a social chat with me. Jimmy is always the first to come and ask about what we were saying to each other. I usually tell him that the CO is about to pounce on a serious poaching ring operating in these parts and we'd better keep our eyes peeled for suspicious people lurking in the woods. It's a fun game.

Now imagine Jimmy loose in and around your part of the county. He calls halfway decently. He just can't aim worth spit. Figure what that does to my flocks. Okay, it doesn't make them "call shy." Let's just say it puts them in a mood.

Now figure this into the equation: When I took over the place in 2001, I spent most of the first seasons chasing poachers off the property. I not only had neighbors coming on, but I had every urban cowboy from Wheeling to Louisville coming on my property-- the big hillbilly bar nightspot is just over on the next ridge and for a number of years, folks that went to the bar would just walk off the back of the parking lot and go into the woods that adjoin my place. It was a major draw-- had acts as good as George "no show" Jones showing up. Figure into this my consternation when I meet up with a guy 4 hours away, down on the KY/TN line who not only knows the "Old Ramsey Place" but can also tell me where the good turkey hunting is. Cheese and Rice! Is there anyone that old Garnetta didn't say could come and hunt? (besides Jimmy of course)

The Old Ramsey Place? Yes, the Old Ramsey Place. How many times have I heard that question! Yes, I own the Old Ramsey Place. No, you can't come hunt there.

Call shy? Okay, we'll just call them "call adverse" or turkeys that prefer to be had via silent ambush.

Decoy shy? I will not call it that, but I've seen hens that completely ignored dekes. It's not a huge stretch to think that if some turkeys have learned to treat dekes as part of the woodwork, there are turkeys that have learned to treat dekse as a signpost for danger. If we don't want to call them deke-shy, then at least let's call them "turkeys that don't like to be shot at"

In German you can throw all kinds of stuff together and make a noun or an adjective. In German that comes out to Trauthähnedieannichtgeschossenwerdenmögen. That's a mouthful. I'll stick with deke shy. The more acceptable variant of "Call shy" or "Turkeys that are in a bad mood" comes out TrauthähnediebevorzugenüberschweigsamenHinterhaltgeschossenzuwerden.

"Your sister does WHAT with a mule???"

Personally, I'll stick with "call shy." However, if you want to call it "in a bad mood" I'll agree. The one you probably don't want to call it is the German equivalent of "Turkeys who choose to move away from your calling for whatever reason."

BTW: Ann Coulter called John Edwards a fag in the 2008 election and got reamed in the liberal press. In support of Ms. Coulter, I called another candidate a "Teletbubi zurück Winker" -- (One who waves back at the Teletubbies) and dared the media to take me on. No one responded. I guess old John's showed us all up, huh? Go John!

Trouble maker, indeed!
I've been through this before with some folks on one of the other "major" turkey forums, so I know where this can end up. Apparently, Silvestris was not a participant in that discussion, because his single sentence is the best I have seen on the issue.

"I believe turkeys can be so mistreated that they suspect fraud is afoot when they hear a call and will patiently await the approach of the calling turkey."

Bingo! ....Does that equate to being "call shy"? There are those that vehemently say no, and there are those that undeniably say yes. Can either side prove their point beyond the doubt of the other? It will never happen.

I will make one comment on the subject at this time. It is a scientific fact that has been proven over and over again in all kinds of studies that animals of all shapes and sizes can "learn" behavior based on both negative and positive reinforcement. A gobbler that comes to a turkey call and gets a load of #6's over the top of his head or in his behind has just been through a crash-course in negative reinforcement, and you can pretty much bet what's left of your 401K that he's going to think twice about doing it again!

At this point, you can plug in whatever name you want to call that "learning experience" and the behavior that will result from it, but for simplicity sake, I will call it "call shyness".

i'm satisfied with the term ''call shy''. we , or someone could have called it ''them birds have a defective social gene''heard a loudmouth gobbler one still mornin' . it was at least 2 hours after sunup when he started in. i was on public land ,and proceeded with slow and deliberate caution toward the bird , trying to hear or listen for someone calling. well i finally reached a 2 track and stopped. after a little while a hunter comes up the road and whispered to me that everytime he called to the bird,,it would go away from him. he then went off through the brush in the direction of the last gobble. so i drifted off in the opposite direction . soon i heard the pleading yelps of a box call. the bird gobbled . then a minute later the bird gobbled again and was clearly moving away from the caller.now i was a lot GREENER THEN THAN I AM NOW, and just sat down on the edge of that 2 track and scratched in the leaves and made a few very faint purrs. i ain't proud of what i did that morn' ,,but i learned a huge thing concerning ''birds that have a deffective social gene''.the bird came right to me. silent as midnight. it was a pitifully poor setup and the bird was only 'bout 20 feet away when he stepped out of the brush. i just watched him in full strut and putt away.he evidently didn't like loud girls. he was a fine LONGBEARD,and teacher.